Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced on Thursday the scheme to promote rooftop solarisation and free electricity in one crore households will help obtain up to 300 units of free electricity every month. This is expected to benefit households in savings between up to ₹15,000 and ₹18,000 from free solar electricity and selling surplus to discoms, the FM added.
The FM presented her pre-election budget, which is technically a vote on account and is popularly termed an interim budget. She also said that the scheme follows the resolve of Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the historic day of the consecration of the Ram Mandir in Ayodhya.
Earlier on January 22, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had announced 'Pradhan Mantri Suryodaya Yojana', under which the government will provide financial assistance to one crore households to get rooftop solar power systems.
The FM said the government will provide viability gap funding for 1 GW of offshore wind energy. India has set a target of 500 GW of renewable energy capacity by 2030. She said the viability gap funding will also be provided for harnessing offshore wind energy capacity of 1 GW to achieve net-zero emissions by 2070.
Earlier, on Wednesday, President Droupadi Murmu outlined India’s focus on green energy in her speech and highlighted that the country’s solar capacity has jumped 26 times, while the renewable energy capacity has more than doubled to 188GW.
According to the Central Electricity Authority data, India has a solar energy installed generation capacity of over 73 GW as per the latest report for December 2023. Similarly, the data showed that wind energy capacity in the country stood at about 45 GW, while large hydro (over 25MW capacity each) is 47GW.
In the last 10 years, 11 new solar parks have been built, President Murmu said, while adding that work is in progress on nine solar parks.
First Published: Feb 1, 2024 12:35 PM IST
